Rahim Zikriyayev

Rahim Zikriyayev (1981-2008) was an Uzbek al-Qaeda member who, in 2008, killed 64 people in a vehicle-ramming and shooting spree in Times Square, New York City.

Biography
Rahim Zikriyayev was born in Urgench, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union in 1974, and he became a radical Islamist during the 1990s. In 1999, at the age of eighteen, he left home and trained at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, becoming a skilled shooter. Zikriyayev fought in the Afghanistan War alongside other Uzbek Islamists, and, in 2008, he was chosen to take part in a terror attack on US soil.

Attack
Zikriyayev flew to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York City, and he rented a hotel room in Harlem. Zikriyayev was given orders to attack Times Square, a popular tourist destination at the heart of Manhattan. One evening, he left his Harlem hotel and hijacked Killion Stone's gray sedan, and he drove down to Times Square. There, he drove his sedan into several crowds of pedestrians, and the police response was slow. Zikriyayev killed around 50 people before his car began to smoke, so he exited his vehicle and began to spray fleeing civilians with Kalashnikov fire and firing RPG rounds (most of which missed or inflicted less casualties than intended). Zikriyayev went on to engage in a shootout with NYPD officers and SWAT troopers who had been rushed in to deal with the situation. He took cover behind a police car and made a last stand, with his cover being fired upon from the left of the car and in front of the car. Zikriyayev sprayed more assault rifle rounds before being shot dead through the window. His attack, along with the even more deadly attack of Nazer Erzhanev, led to the closure of bridges between the boroughs until the spring of 2008.